


Stay

by FuchsiaMae



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2019-08-20 01:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16546490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuchsiaMae/pseuds/FuchsiaMae
Summary: Rosalind acquires a permanent houseguest.(Originally posted to Tumblr 05/22/13)





	Stay

A short stay. A few days, that’s all. Enough time to compare research, get a taste of another universe, and finally meet this doppelganger of his.  _Finally_. He’s so excited he forgets to pack anything but his notes. 

But after a few short minutes in her world a dizzy spell hits him, and he begins to bleed, and he barely makes it to her bed before falling unconscious. An abrupt change of plans. She stays tirelessly by his side as he slips in and out of delirium, and slowly she nurses him back to health. He asks, when he’s lucid, how long it will be before he’s able to return – losing his own world forever isn’t part of this experiment. She shushes him and insists he rest. No question of sending him back until he recovers. At times she fears he might not recover at all.

But recover he does. It takes weeks of bed rest, but at last he is up and about – and ready to explore. He’s not about to waste this visit to a new world. She shows him Columbia, the city built on his own research with money he never had, and it’s everything in his wildest dreams. His own underfunded laboratory seems small and stifling in comparison, a dim memory in contrast to the bright city before him. He bargains another day, another week, just a month more, and each time she smiles as she agrees. 

And so he becomes accustomed to this life. He’s introduced as the famed scientist’s brother, to cover suspicions, and allowed to do as he pleases. Usually he pleases to stay with her. She’s his other half, after all – being with her is like being complete. The thought of leaving makes him ache. 

He brings it up every once in a while, halfheartedly, hoping she’ll shoot it down. She always does. He’s still not well, she says – he had another nosebleed just three days ago. What if he collapses on the other side and there’s no one to help him? Or they simply must finish this experiment before he goes, because she can’t run it alone. They call it an extended visit, and he never does get his own bed, but both of them say without saying that they want him to stay. 

At last they give up the nonsense of sleeping on chairs by the fire, and both move into her bed. She begins to call it  _our bed, our house, our laboratory_ , and he follows suit. He begins to call it  _home_.

One night, curled together beneath the sheets, the question lingers in silence on both their tongues. He beats her by just a heartbeat to speak.

“I suppose I should be going soon.”

“You don’t really mean to leave, do you?”

She blurts it almost before he finishes. He meets her eyes, surprised – and yet not. “You didn’t plan for a permanent houseguest.”

“I don’t mind you imposing.” Their locked gazes hum with tension, yet it feels as right as breathing. She says slowly, “It’s your decision when you’d like to go back, but – ”

“I don’t want to.”

“I don’t want you to.”

This last is, naturally, spoken in unison. They need no more. Other words crowd the backs of their minds – _stay, stay, let me stay,_  threatening to spill into clumsy speech – but their mouths and bodies meet in a tender kiss, and that speaks it all. 


End file.
